At
University Council's December 4 meeting, the quorum
necessary for a vote was present, and the proposed
Bylaws changes were unanimously approved before the
Open Forum.

GAPSA's
status report noted that a GAPSA/UA/GSAC Joint Taskforce
on Graduate Student Teaching will be making a preliminary
report to those three organizations in January, with
a final report later in the spring. GAPSA is working
with GSAC to disseminate information about the NLRB's
decision and has created a webpage accessible through www.gapsa.upenn.edu.
The Graduate Student Center third floor renovation
is expected to be completed by Spring Break.

President
Judith Rodin's status report noted that the University's
response (Almanac November
19) to the Gender Equity Report "underscores
the University's commitment to promoting gender equity
and to improving Penn's comparative position on this
issue relative to peer institutions."

Her
report also reiterated her opposition to divestment, "Penn
will not support divestment from Israel, boycotts
of Israeli scholars and scientists, or any effort
to stifle the free expression of diverse ideas and
opinions about the Middle East conflict by our faculty
and students."

She
also pointed out that Penn continues to have an early
decision program, which is binding on students who
are accepted but that Penn does not preclude students
who apply early decision here from applying early
action at other institutions. This year, the early
decision pool of 3,401 applicants reflects an increase
of 13% over last year.

The
first of the three topics presented by students during
the annual Open Forum portion of the meeting was Early
Decision. Lincoln Ellis, C '04, contended that the
early decision process benefits wealthier students
who do not have to compare financial aid packages
of different institutions. He expressed concerns about
diversity and how the Early Decision process impacts
minority students.

President
Rodin responded to the request for statistics by explaining
that the Council committee on Admissions and Financial
Aid gets data about the applicants, and that for the
last two years, the Early Decision pool has actually
been "significantly stronger than the regular
pool." She also said that Penn's financial aid
offer is the same regardless of when the student applies.

Senate
Chair Mitch Marcus added the committee is charged
by Council to look at these issues this year and that
the president and the provost are fully supportive
of this. Dr. Rodin also said that the committee will
consider whether applicants could get a pre-read to
know approximately what their financial aid package
would look like.

The
second topic was presented on behalf of the Penn Arms
Divestment Campaign which called on Penn to revive
the Committee on University Responsibility or to create
a similar body to examine holdings and to divest from
companies that "support occupation, colonization,
and human rights abuse in the West Bank and Gaza."

A
UA member explained that their resolution passed in
February, was meant to pertain to investing as it
relates to environmental issues and human rights of
workers, not to divestment. The UA asked Penn to establish
an Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility to
make recommendations to the Trustees.

Secretary
of the University Leslie Kruhly mentioned that there
is now a proxy Trustee subcommittee, "a successor
to the Committee on University Responsibility," which
addresses student concerns that have been channeled
through the Office of the Secretary. She said that
some students had met with the subcommittee about
a month ago to offer recommendations.

The
final topic was the Civilian Review Board (CRB) which
was initially suggested last January after an alleged
racial profiling incident. It would get involved with
citizens' complaints against the Penn Police. Shaun
Gonzales of UMC, said that the UMC member on the Public
Safety Advisory Board resigned this semester to avoid
giving the impression that the Advisory Board was
sufficient.

Chief
of Police Tom Rambo said that the complaint process
has been revised and that the appeal process allows
a complainant to go to the Vice President of Public
Safety or to the Public Safety Advisory Board, chaired
by Dr. Dennis Culhane, of social work. Complaint forms
are now available not only at the UPPD headquarters,
but at the many resource centers throughout campus.